Chinese symbol for “upward”

向上

xiàng shàng

upward; up; to advance; to try to improve oneself

The closest CC-CEDICT match for upward is 向上 (xiàng shàng), defined as: upward; up; to advance; to try to improve oneself; to make progress.

Before using these characters for a tattoo, check them with a native speaker. Dictionary words often have several meanings, and the right choice depends on context.

Characters and stroke order

向 xiàng

towards; direction, trend

radical 30 ⼝ · 6 strokes

上 shàng

above, on top, superior; to go up; to attend; previous

radical 1 ⼀ · 3 strokes

Related words

Other words that share a character with 向上.

Word	Pinyin	Meaning
方向	fāng xiàng	direction; orientation
走向	zǒu xiàng	direction; strike (i.e. angle of inclination in geology)
倾向 (傾向)	qīng xiàng	trend; tendency
转向 (轉向)	zhuǎn xiàng	to change direction; fig. to change one's stance
面向	miàn xiàng	to face; to turn towards; geared towards; catering for; -oriented; (Tw) aspect; facet
以上	yǐ shàng	that level or higher; that amount or more; the above-mentioned
晚上	wǎn shang	evening; night
身上	shēn shang	on the body; at hand

See also: Japanese symbol for “upward”.

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3); Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License (graphics.txt); LGPL-3.0-or-later (dictionary.txt)); wordfreq (CC BY-SA 4.0 (data)). Retrieved 2026-10-22.